DAY SIX: Wednesday,
20 August 2008
Day’s Starting Pedometer Mileage: 840.
I planned on sleeping in a little
today to catch up on what sleep I had missed, and to spend part of the day in Flagstaff . I also considered taking Doug Snow up on his
offer of spending the night in Phoenix
at his home. I couldn’t get a hold of
him the previous night, but was able to do so this morning. Had all the arrangements worked out, and Doug
said to contact him when I was arriving in Phoenix so he could give me specific
directions if needed. This was the first
morning I ate the continental breakfast at the hotel. It was a bowl of Frosted Flakes, a banana,
and a bottle of Naked Juice (fruit smoothie) that I had on ice from the evening
before. I still hurt a bit from yesterday’s
hike, but a lot less than what it had been.
Since normal check-out time was 11
am, and it was about 8.30, I went to the front desk and told them I needed to
check-out early. I had packed most of my
shit the night before, and the remainder before breakfast, and had already
carried all my stuff to the car. Since
it was before the check-out deadline, I wasn’t charged for the next day. I left the hotel to hit some points in Flagstaff (which I really
hadn’t done all trip). Having seen the
construction that was going on in the southbound lane of I-17 when I came back
from Sedona last night, I knew that would add time to my journey. And not being too familiar with how the
rush-hour traffic in Phoenix
could be, I also didn’t want to be caught in that.
I would make one target stop in Flagstaff , and my other planned destination (the Museum of
Northern Arizona )
would just have to wait for a later trip.
I arrived at Lowell Observatory, one of the main things I wanted to see
in Flagstaff . Lowell Observatory sits another thousand feet
above Flagstaff
on the aptly-named Mars Hill. Lowell figured the elevation over the area would be a
great location to build his dream, as Flagstaff
was a small mining town then. Once
everything was shipped in from the East Coast, then it was hauled up to the top
of Mars Hill by mule train. In addition
to the observatory, Lowell
built a home for himself up there too.
Inside the visitor’s center, I
watched a presentation about how stars are found in the sky with a version of
latitude and longitude called “right ascension” and “declination.” It was stuff I remember from my Astronomy
class, but I also remember how Lee told me when she visited McDonnell
Observatory (in west Texas )
the presentation about that was god-awful boring. The presentation I received was done in a way
that was much more interesting. My guide
also showed the group how to view the sun through a telescope using a filter
(and would’ve seen sunspots, if there had been any). The tour also included the library (which had
articles about Pluto’s discovery was made, and the history of the Observatory
itself).
The library also had some ballot
boxes where visitors could vote on what they “considered” Pluto. You could mark a piece of paper as to whether
you thought Pluto should regain it’s “planet” status, retain it’s current “dwarf
planet” designation, or be known as something else entirely. Being this was Lowell ’s place, the “planet” box had more
votes than anything else. I cast my vote
for “other,” as I thought it should be called a KPO (Kupier Belt Object) until
we actually send out a probe to see it’s more than just the frozen iceball we
think it is.
Near the library was a crypt where
Percival Lowell is buried. Keeping in
mind the group was at an elevation of over 7,000 feet, the tour guide kept her
pace a little slower, but I still was the only one who could keep up with her
without heavy breathing. She did notice
that, comment that I’m obviously used to the mountains, and asked where I was
from. After I told her Texas , she replied with a friendly grin “Not
originally.”
We went into the building where the
Clark Telescope was, which weighed 7 tons.
This was the telescope which discovered Pluto. I got to play with the controls to move the
rotunda around, and another guy got to see how easy it was to move the actual
telescope (pretty easy from the way it was designed and attached to a
gimble). Over on the side of the
building was some scaffolding with a wooden easy chair on it. It was explained that’s where Lowell sat when he looked
through the telescope. That was the
extent of the tour, and we were free to wander the grounds.
I did do the Plutowalk, which had a
representation of the relative distances of the planets, and also took a few
shots over-looking Flagstaff .
With it now being noon, I hopped on
I-17 and headed towards Phoenix . I passed some of the back ways into Sedona,
and also got some decent pictures from the car as I cruised along. I had an idea that I would stop again at
Montezuma’s Well to wash my feet again, but I had too much sun at this point
and too much walking. To get to the Well
would require some backtracking on roads going in an opposite direction that I
wanted to go, and I just wanted to get to Phoenix
before the lack of sleep caught up with me.
I passed Rock Springs where I had first pulled off the
road to take pictures on the way up, and was on my second bottle of my pink
crack to get me through the drive. Once
I arrived in Phoenix , it wasn’t that far to the
suburb of Glendale (northwest of Phoenix ) to where Doug
and Deana lived. I hadn’t seen Doug in
like twenty years, and have never met Deana before (although had seen one
picture). Deana’s parents were over
working on something with her, so Doug and I sat in the front den, and he asked
about the various bits of my trip. I was
then able to officially meet Deana when her parents left, and went with Doug to
pick up their daughter Sierra from her after-school. Sierra is in Kindergarten, and her brother
Andrew was just born back in July.
We devoured pizza and wings for
dinner, at least Doug and I had the wings.
It sounded like home hearing the discussions of who wanting what on
their pizza, and pretty much everyone getting their own pie. Doug had commented that when he first came to
Phoenix over a
decade or so ago, there was no decent place to get wings. That had changed not too long ago when a
place opened that did true Buffalo-style wings.
Doug and I each demolished a dozen in true barbarian fashion. I also showed Doug the trip pictures, did
some other chit chat, and then retired for the evening to try to get some
sleep. The pain in my feet was less, so
I was able to drop off. Before that had
happened, I had planned my attack for the next day.
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